What kind of social demarcation are these familiar symbols responsible for? carved into our collective consciousness, hammered into banality by mass comprehension. Like the company or corporation the capitalist world itself has a front end, an image of sorts; an adornment designed to create faith and followers in the marketplace. Like the repetitive hum of an east London market trader, the chorus is insistent, amusing even, yet dangerously subversive: coaxing us towards desire: "3 pand of strawberries fer a pand.....come and get yer strawberries!" Its a landscape of manufactured personality, floating around in varying densities above our heads - like a tangible medium. It obscures reality and replaces it with something new something fresh something persuasive.
Taking a stroll down Oxford Street I'm struck by the more obvious features of this bizarre meta-reality: The throngs of bodies in motion, the noise and polluted air, the sirens and horns and engine thrum, the rich rubbing shoulders with the poor, vagrants and addicts and rubbish all coursing through a glazed canyon like a mad bubbling river. Oxford Street is in many ways a centre for our trade, a reference point for the evolving tenacity of branding in all its multitudes. A real and physical expression of this special deployment. Desire is without inertia here it has free rein; brands re-defining our personas in a liquid manner: What's in or out what's cool or not; a multitude of layers compressed by time and competition, nebulous yet strangely predictable.
The jostling for attention, the vying for space : countless 'image grenades' detonating everywhere, nobody safe from the shrapnel. The effect in us is evident, people are drones, submitted to a temporary anaesthesia: the ' anaesthetic of familiarity'. Branding is the language of want and desire, the language of need, a 'strange attractor' guiding the head and the heart inwardly.
There is a viral quality to the successful brand, where virulence must prevail. Where does this leave our soft, analogue, emotive and error-prone minds; what is natures manifest? On a human level where are we left with our Platonic ideals? The care and regard offered by being human and our mutual provenance. There is aggression in this branded world where survival is key to be seen, to be wanted. Are we permeable to this particular feature of violent survival? subtly mirrored as in those sparkling windows lining the concourse?
Arguably an increasing prevalence of the mediocre in popular culture exists during a time where 'games players' and 'entertainers' are held in higher regard then 'Scientists' or 'Engineers'; where more focus is given to the clothing of Posh or Becks rather then to the welfare of each other. Where 'stuff' is more important than people. Road rage gives way to something new on Oxford Street: I call it 'pavement rage'; a rare thing that's finding its feet here bit by bit. Individuals no longer cased in the safety or 'territory' of their vehicles begin to push and grimace at each other directly, throwing caution to the wind. I watched a young well dressed woman nearly punch a man to the ground the other day just for standing in her way. Did he not see her Prada bag? The signs were there after all!
Felix Dodd
Head of Department
LIGHTHAUS
1 James Street • London • W1U 1DR
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